Chapter 47 – Josie
chapter
forty-seven
Josie
My quads were on fire and I was pretty sure this timed mile was going to kill me.
Usually by 400 meters, the adrenaline was gone and your legs told you the truth.
Mine had bailed somewhere during the last lap, and that last lap was just whatever I’d put in the bank with training.
I came off the curve into the back straight, lungs scraping, form holding, and crossed the line two-tenths under last week’s split.
“Washington,” Coach Rivera called as he came out of the equipment shed, and he wasn’t smiling, which was the tell. “Yates wants to see you. Her office, soon as you’re cooled down.”
No way this was good news.
I rushed through my cooldown, which probably defeated the point. Coach Yates’s office sat past the equipment cages. I’d been in here twice — the day I made the team, the day she bumped my intervals after I beat my tryout time. My shoes squeaked the whole way to the office.
She was at her desk, hands folded, that WORLD’S OKAYEST COACH mug steaming at her elbow. She closed a binder when I filled the doorway.
“Shut the door,” she said. “Sit.”
I shut the door and took a seat in the worn leather chair across from her. My legs were still buzzing from the run, and after the look on Rivera’s face, I had to press my heels into the floor to keep my knee from bouncing.
Yates studied me for a second. “I’m getting pressure to pull you off the team.”
Off the team, after everything I’d done to get here? My throat closed and my eyes burned, and I tipped my head back like that ever fooled anybody. Under the panic was a small, tired voice saying not this one too.
“From who?”
“Well that’s the question,” she said, easing back. “Somebody’s leaning on my staff to cut a walk-on who ran 2:09 in the 800 in November, so I went up the chain to find out who. Do you know why your scholarship got pulled two years ago?”
I’d been asking that for two years and never gotten an answer. “They never gave me a reason,” I said, and I barely recognized my own voice.
“Because there wasn’t one.” Yates didn’t soften it.
“Somebody called the athletic director and pulled your scholarship. The word is it was Dalton Kane, and his son put him up to it. Marcus wanted you gone, so you were the sacrifice.” She sighed.
“I’m telling you now because we just got another call. ”
Shit. I stopped breathing.
The chair was the only thing holding me up. I kept my hands flat on my thighs and my mouth shut, because the string of expletives I had cued up would be totally useless.
“What happens to my spot?” I asked quietly.
“Nothing. I have no intentions to cut a walk-on in good standing, and I’m willing to put this in writing.
My predecessor might have caved before, but they can feel free to kiss my brown ass.
” She came forward onto her elbows. “But I do need you walking out of here knowing what’s pointed at you.
Watch your back. Someone’s put a target on it. ”
“I know who. And I know what he is,” I said. I’d always known.
I left her office quickly and ran out to the parking lot. The cold hit me hard enough to catch my breath. I leaned against my car and called my mom.
Fucking voicemail…again.
“Hey, baby, it’s Mama. I’m probably elbow-deep in Kane’s quarterlies, so leave a message, and I’ll call you back when I surface for air.” As always, her voice was bright and quick, and made me long for one of her laughing hugs.
I dialed again. Where the hell was she?
Panic won out. I hit redial and got the same recording.
Mom kept Dalton Kane’s books. She’d handled his finances for years, and now I couldn’t stop thinking about what he could do to her with one phone call. Marcus had a reason to hurt her and had already proven he was willing to do so.
On my third call. I waited for the tone. “Mom, it’s me. Call me back when you get this — it’s not an emergency.” I blew out a breath. “Love you.” I hung up and stared at the screen. Call me, Mom. Please call me.
I’d known Marcus would come after me eventually, but holy shit, not like this. He wasn’t going to stop until I’d lost everything, so I had to make him stop. If that meant giving up the one person who loved me for the real me, then that was what I’d do.
Waylon’s porch light was on, low and amber. I knocked hard enough to hurt. Seconds later, he dragged the door open in a flannel shirt and bare feet. He took one look at my face and reached for me.
“Flash? What’s wrong?” His voice was concerned.
I dodged his touch. No way I’d have the strength to do what had to be done if he touched me. “Don’t.”
He went still, his hand dropping. He looked careful, the way he got when he was trying to keep somebody else calm.
“Come inside.”
“No.” I needed the cold to keep me sharp. “I need you to listen, and I need you not to touch me while I do, because if you touch me, I won’t get through it.”
He stayed in the doorway, hands open at his sides. I could see it in his face. He knew what was coming, and he was going to let me do it.
God, I didn’t know if I could do it now. All I wanted to do was fall into his arms.
“Marcus had his father kill my track scholarship,” I said.
“Before I ever set foot here. He wanted me gone, so Daddy made a phone call.” I watched his jaw set and his eyes go flat.
“And it’s not stopping with me. Your draft.
Aaron told you about the calls. Because of you and me and whatever this is. ”
“Josie,” he said, his voice low and raw.
“Let me finish.” I pressed my hands together so they’d quit shaking. “He won’t stop. He’ll keep coming until there’s nothing left of you. The draft. The team. I can’t be the thing that costs you all of it.”
“You’re not the problem,” he cut in. “He is.”
“I know that. But knowing doesn’t fix it. He won’t stop coming for me. For us.” I forced the words past the lump in my throat.
“Flash,” he said, quietly, and it nearly took my knees out.
“Don’t call me that. Not right now.”
He took one step forward. I took one back, off the porch and onto the gravel, and he stopped at the threshold and didn’t cross it. His hands came up, palms out. “This is what he wants. This is the exact thing he’s been pushing for.”
“I know.” I did know. But I knew Marcus, and he wouldn’t stop, and I wasn’t going to let him fuck with the people I loved.
“Then don’t.” His voice was raw. He blinked hard, but I saw the tears anyway.
Get it done. It’s safer for him.
“I have to.” My voice cracked. I bit the inside of my cheek until I could trust it again. “I know exactly what he’s doing, but that doesn’t change anything. He’s better at this game and I’m out of moves.”
“No. You’re running, Josie. You’re giving up.”
“Give me another choice!” I shouted. “I would kill for another choice. But what I want isn’t worth hurting everyone I care about.”
He looked at me for a long time without moving. I needed him to stay right there — to let me walk away so he could keep his draft and his team and his mother and everything else I hadn’t cost him yet.
“Don’t do this,” he said.
I shrugged. “It’s already done.” I wrapped my arms around myself and held on. “I’m sorry.”
He let me take two more steps back. His face went blank, and that hurt worse than if he’d yelled. I turned before I had to see anything else.
I walked to my car and got in. I set my hands at ten and two. In the rearview mirror, his porch light shrank behind me, but the shape in the doorway didn’t move. I told myself not to look again, but I couldn’t help myself.